An interesting question:
CAN WE FIND THE COURAGE
TO BE HOLY?

The discussions here have become quite lively, and I have enjoyed them very much. Glad to have you all on board, and spending your time engaging your Mind, whatever you believe. I happen to believe that what I believe creates my reality. I could be wrong about that, but my experience over a lifetime has proven the opposite to me. So I’m going to stick with my current beliefs unless and until proven otherwise to me.

I believe in God, and what I believe about God has become the central focus of a life that without this belief would feel meaningless. I choose not to believe in a life of meaninglessness.

I was offered this observation by Conversations with God: “Nothing has any meaning, save the meaning you give it.” That has been my on-the-ground experience for sure. I hope that all of you are served mightily and lovingly by the meaning you have given to the experiences in your life. I hope you take care of yourself in this way.

Now with this entry I want to talk about beingism.

I am coining this term, I am using this made-up word, to describe a way of moving through the world. It is a giving up of how you think you should be, or would like to be, or imagine how others are expecting you to be, in any given situation. It is a surrendering to what I believe to be your True Nature, a giving in to what I believe to be your Highest Self. And it is something you do most often without thinking.

That is the whole point of it. The point is to stop Thinking and start Being.

When you are Thinking, you are caught in the Mind. When you are Being, you are freely expressing the Soul. When you are expressing your Soul you are experiencing Who You Really Are. When you are caught in your Mind you are experiencing who you imagine yourself to be — or to have to be in order to meet the expectations of others.

I was in a hospital years ago visiting my father. There was a guy in the next room. This man was calling out and moaning. He was obviously in pain. The nurse was not coming fast enough. He was in distress. He was moaning, “Oh God, oh, my God, I can’t take it.” My dad was nowhere near that. He was just laying there feeling perfectly fine.

I said “Hey, I have got to go over there. I have got to go see what’s going on next door.” He said no. He said, Son, leave it alone, leave it to the nurses. I said “No, I’ve got to go. I can’t let that guy just lie there.”

Instantly when I went in there, compassion was called forth. Now listen very carefully to what I just said. I didn’t say, “Compassion was called for.” I said, “Compassion was called forth.” This “calling forth” is a process in which the Mind, analyzing a situation, opens an immediate pathway to the Soul. The soul pours forth its Essence—the true Essence of its Being—and that Essence expresses through you, as you. This manifests without effort because it is, in fact, who you really are.

We have all been in situations similar to that, whatever the circumstance, where compassion is called forth. Or patience is called forth. Or kindness, or understanding, or immense generosity, or just plain love…is called forth. This particular version of our Essence just bubbles up. It just comes up in us. We do not think about it. We do not decide, I think I will be compassionate here. The highest callings are sent out automatically. It is merely a question of whether we will respond to them.

I went in and talked to the guy. I rubbed his forehead. I held his hand. He was an older man, about 80 or 85. He was having a terrible time. His meds had run out. His pain had come back. I do not know what was going on with him, but I just talked to him quietly. He did not even care who I was. He did not even care. I could have been a doctor. I could have been a nurse who hadn’t put his scrubs on yet. I could have been a psychiatrist who’d been called down from the seventh floor. He had no idea who I was and he did not care. Someone was a witness to his life. That made it all a little easier. Someone was bearing witness…

Years later I experienced myself feeling these words as my innermost reality: “Your victories are my victories, your travails are my travails. Your risings are my risings, your fallings are my fallings. You have not experienced a part of you that I have not experienced as a part of me. I stand as not only a witness to your life, but as a liver of it, through my Oneness with you. Inwardly I celebrate your joys, and inwardly I share your burdens. And I will have it no other way…because We Are All One, and I will not turn from you in this hour. For what I do for you, I do for me. And what I fail to do for you, I fail to do for me. I shall not separate myself from you when just the opposite is called for, if I am truly here to heal the world by healing my Self of any false thoughts I ever held about Who I Really Am. First I must see Who You Really Are — and this I choose to do now, in this self-same moment.”

I didn’t tell that story to make myself look good. I told it to illustrate something. As I said, we’ve all had moments like this. We’ve all experienced “showing up” in life in a very big way, in a very wonderful way. We may not even have seen it as that, but it was that, I can tell you, in the life of another.

This is what I mean when I talk about beingism as a tool for an individual. This is what I mean when I speak of beingism as an engine for an entire society. Imagine what a world we would have if we all simply decided to be “compassion.” Or to be “understanding.” Or—dare I suggest it?—to be “holy.”

To be “holy” is to be One With Another. It is to be One With ALL Others. To be “holy” is to be Whole.

Amen, and amen.